Martin J. Hillenbrand, who joined UGA’s political science department following a lengthy career as a U.S. diplomat and was the Dean Rusk Professor of International Relations for 15 years, died Feb. 2. He was 89.
Hillenbrand served in the U.S. Foreign Service from 1939 until 1976. He was the first U.S. ambassador to Hungary from 1967 to 1969 and later was ambassador to Germany from 1972 to 1976.
He also held diplomatic posts in Burma, India, Mozambique and France and served as assistant secretary of state for European affairs.
After retiring from the Foreign Service, Hillenbrand, a native of Youngstown, Ohio, served five years as director-general of the Atlantic Institute for International Affairs in Paris.
He joined the political science faculty in 1982 as the first Rusk Professor and served as director of the Center for Global Policy Studies and co-director of the Center for East-West Trade Policy.
Following his retirement in 1997, the Robert Bosch Foundation of Stuttgart, Germany, made a gift to UGA to create the Martin J. Hillenbrand Fellowship to support graduate students specializing in transatlantic relations.
He was a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and was author or co-author of four books and more than 25 book chapters and articles.
After retiring from UGA, he wrote his memoirs, Fragments of Our Time: Memoirs of a Diplomat, published by the University of Georgia Press in 1998.
A memorial service for Hillenbrand will be held Feb. 21 at 11 a.m. at the university’s Catholic Center on Lumpkin Street.
